Neenah school district pays off debt

Kimberly owes $35 million for building surge

Nov. 3, 2012

The Kimberly Area School District had $35 million in debts as of June 30 because of a building boom in recent years that included the construction of Kimberly High School. Sunrise Elementary School and Woodland Intermediate School were also built for what was the fastest-growing school district in the state in the late 1990s and early 2000s. / The Post-Crescent

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The Neenah Joint School District boasts many accomplishments, including a rich curriculum, award-winning schools and above-average ACT scores. This year alone, six Neenah High School students are semifinalists in the National Merit Scholarship program.

Another achievement for the school district is less known, but no less impressive: Neenah will be nearly debt free at the end of the 2012-13 school year.

Neenah had $1.8 million in debt as of June 30 and will pay off the bulk of that in the coming months. The payoff won’t require any new tax dollars because the district will draw the money from its sufficient cash reserves.

“Instead of levying for that money this year, we’re going to move it from the general fund to the debt service fund to make those payments,” said Paul Hauffe, director of business services.

In the subsequent six years, Neenah will owe a total of $500,000, and $350,000 of that already has been collected.

“We have an extremely low level of long-term debt,” Hauffe said. “It’s almost completely nothing at this point.”

That’s a claim few other school districts can make. According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, outstanding debt in comparable districts ranged from $4.9 million for Stevens Point to $40.6 million for Fond du Lac.

Locally, Kimberly and Appleton were in the upper half of the range, and Menasha and Kaukauna were in the lower half. Elsewhere, Middleton-Cross Plains had $35.5 million in debt; West Bend, $34.1 million; Oshkosh $23.2 million; and Manitowoc, $8.2 million.

Kimberly

Kimberly carried $35 million in debt as of June 30 — second only to Fond du Lac among the school districts in the Fox Valley Association — because of a building boom.

Supt. Bob Mayfield said Kimberly was the fastest-growing school district in the state in the late 1990s and early 2000s, thanks in part to the opening of State 441, which spurred development. The growth in student enrollment led to the construction of three schools: Sunrise Elementary School, Kimberly High School and Woodland Intermediate School.

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“That’s a significant amount of building in the last decade,” Mayfield said. “It’s obviously a correlation to that explosion of growth.”

Appleton

Appleton had $32.6 million in debt. The district borrowed money to build Appleton North High School; to acquire and renovate the former Alliance Church building, which is now the Ken Sager Center; to improve parking and facilities at Appleton West High School; and to buy and install new servers and computers.

Don Hietpas, Appleton’s chief financial officer, said the debt load is “on the low end of districts our size.”

“We haven’t built a new school for a while, not since North in the 1990s,” Hietpas said. “That’s typically where districts get their big chunks of debt.”

Menasha

Menasha had $14.7 million in debt, but that number could rise soon if the school district carries out improvements to Menasha High School. One option to renovate and expand the high school would cost as much as $41 million; an alternative option would cost as much as $30 million.

Kaukauna

Kaukauna’s debt of $14.2 million stems from the construction of Kaukauna High School, which opened in 1999. The debt will be paid off in 2017.

Bob Schafer, Kaukauna’s financial officer, said Kaukauna “is definitely on the low end of debt-service payments compared to other districts.”

He said Kaukauna’s recent $1.3 million renovation of Park Elementary School required no additional debt. Instead, the work was funded from cash reserves.